Richard Herd
Forum Replies Created
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You need this: https://www.amazon.com/American-Cinematographer-Manual-Ninth-Vol/dp/0935578242
and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field
It’s also very important to note that DOF is also a way to tell your story because you can focus on the subject the audience is supposed to look at. The easy example is the over the shoulder shot. Close up of a person’s face and someone behind them enters the room, as they turn rack focus to the new person in the scene who then delivers his or her line.
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Here’s another technique: Get there very early 🙂
I don’t know exactly how much experience you have but if you’re a one man show, then you need time to do both jobs: camera and audio. This post is about audio:
Wear headphones and listen very carefully: What’s that buzz? What’s the hum? Then search for them and turn off the refrigerator, turn off the A/C or heater, coffee pot, fluorescent lights…a million things really.
One potential problem to anticipate is the lav mic: If the talent is moving a lot, then the potential for rubbing the mic on clothing is a real problem. The best mic for this would be akin to a headset mic.
I recently shot an interview, and the location jimmy-rigged their audio so poorly that I could not get a line from the board into my camera, so I did my best to use a shotgun mic. Well the room was very loud, so I’ve spent hours and hours EQing the thing and at best it’s still less than mediocre. Business-wise, I was not on the hook for the audio, so I bore no responsibility, and offered solutions for next time and now will produce the whole thing next (rather than just shoot). Anyway, this leads to my next questions: What about room tone? Will there be music in the room?
Last: You may also want to consider posting in other forums to get some feedback that’s not limited to cinematography. There’s a lot of them to choose from.
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How are you handling audio?
— shoot the whole thing in one take so the audio is contiguous.
— shoot more coverage
— aesthetically, keeping the camera within 15 degrees of each other will create a slight jump cut. Sometimes that’s cool, sometimes not.
— be sure to shoot so the editor can cut on action, so if a guy is doing a sit up, then you cut on that. Editor’s job–which could be you too!–is to scrub the video for the edit point
— you can also “trick the eye” by letting the action exit the frame and cut on that too (one technique I use a lot–when audio doesn’t matter–is to shoot the wide shot, let the subject clear the frame, then I quickly reframe and zoom for a CU/MU, leading the subject for a clean entrance on the CU. In editing, I delete my reframe and zoom. -
This question will never go away. 🙂
A bit of correction, like on the SAT. XDCAM EX is not parallel to P2, because, whereas XDCAM is a codec, P2 is a storage medium. P2 can store lots of data in different formats, assigned by your camera. The prosumer HD codec for panasonic is DVCPRO HD. Your question should be comparing XDCAM EX v. DVCPRO HD.
From a data point of view, the issue is the cards can’t store ALL the data so some form of “unacceptable” compression must occur. Panny guys and girls argue that Panasonic is less cruddy than Sony and vice versa. With the Panasonic, there is fancy math that “magically” makes an HD signal. With the Sony, there is fancy math that “erases” the full raster data at persistence of vision, a long GOP.
Other more important factors, IMO, are how does the camera feel in your hand? Does the design match your idea of how a camera should look? (This is important when you pull it out of its case and everyone is looking to see the camera.) What are you going to do with it? What accessories are available that you also need, tripod, lights, matte box, storage, cases, dollies, jibs?
Both cameras are (relatively) inexpensive cameras for a reason.
Where’s my $0.02?
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I assume the link’s a type-o for: http://www.panasonic.com/p2hd which took me here: https://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/p2-hd/index.asp
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Tiffen Center Spot 3
https://tiffen.com/tiffen_filters.html -
When they enter the field, I got goosebumps.
Well done!
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That’ll look awesome!
How quickly will 80fps burn through a 50′ load?
HDV is different than HD. Transferring the footage at the highest quality possible is worth the expense.
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Let me blunt about film school: it was awesome (AAU, SF 2005).
I agree a series of Cow Videos would be something great! You can get a screenwriting DVD, an editing DVD, an animation DVD. But what about cinematography?! I would like to request such a thing, and the first topic I would like to study more is a coverage plan. Especially with regard to how the DP and Director arrive at a way to cover the scene. My short movie “Poison” is nearly complete, but, (whereas my lighting design was pretty decent) I feel my coverage plan was somehow…lacking. That is, where do I say “Okay, I don’t need to cover that with a master shot because I know that’s where the close up is.” In another scene Jorge (playing Ray) reached some really low emotional beats, and I was unsure how many times to make him do that. I mean I felt bad for the guy.
(Best thing about learning filmmaking is it’s not like flying an airplane; that is, there’s plenty of margin for error.)
Here’s some links to explore.
https://ascmag.com/store/home.php?cat=263
https://www.amazon.com/Bare-Bones-Camera-Course-Video/dp/0960371818
https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Revised-2nd/dp/1879505622/ref=pd_sim_b_1
https://www.theasc.com/education/reading/index.html
https://www.theasc.com/cgibin/store/acsstore.cgi?user_action=category&category=Back%20Issues